Green Leaves and Jam

My little guy is just over 2 months old now and I finally feel like I’m getting back into the swing of things. My long list of projects is finally starting to get tackled. For instance, yesterday I spent my alone time (the kids’ nap time) fixing 3 shirts that I bought a little while back or inherited from people that just needed some tweaking to be perfect. This little gem that I bought from a thrift store for $2 was one of them:

I had to take in the side seams, and the arms were about an inch and a half too fluffy. I also raised the shoulder of the sleeve by about an inch. I’m pretty happy with the end result.

I recovered another glider recently as well and I think it turned out pretty good.:)

I have gotten back into making fun creations in my kitchen which has been nice. I have been wanting to make a jam with chia seeds for some time now. I remember making jam with my mom when I was a kid. She still tells the story about when we were making jelly one day and she asked “Now what have we learned today when making this jelly?” My response was “that jelly is mostly sugar!” Even my little 10 year old brain recognized the large amounts of sugar, although sugar meant something much different to me then than it does now. I don’t shudder at the word “sugar,” but I do love trying to find ways to decrease the sugar amounts in anything I make.

Ok, look at the amazing color on these berries! This has no filter. Honest.

This is what the jam looked like after mashing the cooked berries and adding the chia seeds and mixing them in.

This happy little guy kept me company while I made this lovely jam.

Mixed Berry Chia Seed Jam

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

Author: greenleavesandjam.com

Ingredients

3 cups mixed berries
3½ tbsp agave, maple syrup or honey
3 tbsp chia seeds
½ tsp vanilla

Directions

In a small saucepan combine the berries and agave and stir occasionally over medium-high heat until it begins to boil.
Once boiling, turn down the heat to let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Using a potato masher, mash the berries.
Mix in the chia seeds and let it simmer for another 2 minutes, then remove it from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and let it stand for about an hour. This will allow the chia seeds to soak in the liquids.
Pour your jam into a jar or a container with a lid and store it in your fridge.

My daughter really loves this stuff and calls it her “holly delly!” (or homemade jelly). She’s a fan.

Enjoy!

Kristin

My friend Janssen made a post a bit ago where she took pictures throughout the day and posted them stating what they did all day. I really enjoyed reading that post and thought maybe someone might find ours interesting/fun as well, so here goes! Here is a day from last week.

7:30 am, we all gather at the kitchen table for our morning smoothie.

9 am, Little miss and I go for a morning walk (It was freezing by the way! I could hardly see because my eyes were watering so bad!).

10 am, Baby boy hangs out on the couch while Little miss and I play a few card games.

12 pm, Joel is home from work so the little miss and I head over to Ikea for the kids eat free lunch and then play in the play place. She also had to test out all the beds…lol

1:30 pm, Little Miss lays down for her nap so baby boy and I have some hangout time on mommies bed.:)

2 pm, the little miss finally falls asleep.

5 pm Baby boy hangs out in his bouncer and watches while I prepare our salads for dinner.

6 pm, Little Miss has some dessert before getting ready for bed.

7 pm, both kids are being put to bed by my wonderful husband and I get to go for an errand run!

8 pm, the husband and I sit down for a chat about our budget/finances.

9 pm, I sit down for a little tennis watching with the hubster.

10:20, baby boy has had his last feeding for the night and we both go to bed.

Things have been crazy and fun lately. We’re trying to sell our house right now, so between adjusting to having 2 kids and trying to keep the house super clean for showings, it’s been busy. We’ve also had family in town a lot since we’re trying to take advantage of living near family before moving. My parents were in town this weekend so we had fun going out to eat with them and the kids.

Now on to the muffins… I’m always looking for fun and nutritious snacks to feed my family and muffins are a great and easy way to do just that! There are so many ways you can change up muffins and make them different and exciting. Muffins are also a good alternative to a loaf pan because you have individual servings and therefore are not tempted to eat half the pan (or about 6 muffins) in ten minutes.

My daughter is a huge fan of craisins and bananas, so this was a huge hit for her. She literally has craisins in her oatmeal every morning per her request. She would probably eat them by the handful all day if we let her.

Banana and Craisin Muffins

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

22 mins

Total time

32 mins

Author: greenleavesandjam.com

Serves: 12-16

Ingredients

2 tbsp Flax Meal
3 tbsp Water
2 Cups Wheat Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
½ tsp Cinnamon
½ Cup Brown Sugar
3 tbsp Oil
1¼ Cup Non-dairy Yogurt
¾ Cup Craisins
2 Medium to Large Ripe Bananas, chopped (about 1¼ cup)

Directions

In a small bowl, mix together the flax meal and the water and let sit until it becomes goopy.
In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar.
Add in oil, yogurt, flax and water mixture.
Stir until well combined.
Add in craisins.
Chop bananas into small pieces and fold into the muffin mixture.
Grease muffin tin.
Fill muffin tins and bake in oven at 350 degrees for 22-25 minutes. Makes 12-16 muffins.

I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as our family and that your new year has been as great as ours has so far!

Kristin

It’s been WAYYY too long since I last posted. A lot has happened over the last 2 months or so. Here is a little mini catch-up:

Our baby boy was born on November 20th at 4:55pm. He weighed 7 lbs 5 oz, and was 20 inches long. Here are some of the fantastic photos an extremely talented friend of mine, Chelsie took of our sweet boy:

We had a wonderful Christmas with family over in Houston:

Oh and last but not least: We put our house up on the market! We’re moving out to California in February with Joel’s job for a 6 month rotation. We’re super excited, but that along with the new baby and trying to find a new normal has really kept us busy.

So there is a little update about our life here in Texas. Now, on to talk about food, glorious food!

We are having people over for dinner this evening and so I was making a few of my favorite foods and thought I should share them with you. I got the recipes from VeganBaking.net, and every thing that I have made of Mattie’s that is on that website, we have all LOVED! Here are a few of our faves:

Ultimate Vegan Brownies

Coconut Oil Based Vegan Butter

and Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

I don’t have pictures of the butter, but I do have pictures of the wonderful brownies and vanilla ice cream!

Don’t they look fantastic?!? Well they are, and that is why! Little warning: they are NOT healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but if consumed in small quantities, they won’t hurt you.. too bad..lol

I also made some more of the Whole Wheat Cheesecake Factory Bread that I posted on here a little bit ago.

Anyway, hope your holidays were fantastic and that you’re working towards/accomplishing your new years resolutions! Here is a list of a few of mine:

Exercise every Tuesday and Thursday and do a family walk on Sunday
No T.V. Sunday through Wednesday
Lose 10 lbs by the end of this month (I’ve lost 6 so far!!), 5 lbs by the end of February, and this one will be hard: 5 more lbs by the end of March
drink water: 3 of my 23 oz bottle every day
Get dressed/ready every day by 9:30 am
Read my scriptures daily and say prayers every morning and evening
Write in my journal monthly

And the list goes on… So far I have kept up with all of them except the getting ready every day by 9:30..that one has slipped a time or 2 already this year..:/

Did you have any great new years resolutions you’d like to share?

Kristin

It has been a little while since I last posted. Generally I like to post 2 times a week with occasionally only posting once, but it’s been what, 2 weeks since my last post? Just wanted to let you know that yes, I am still here. Things have just been super busy over the last little bit.

This picture is from October 25th, but you get the idea.. I’m looking pregnant!:)

To be honest, the reality that this baby is coming and SOON has really started to sink in. I have been trying to get lots of things done before this baby comes. I’ve been doing LOTS of sewing projects and quite a few deep-cleaning projects as well trying to get prepared for this new little baby. Yesterday for example, I finished up a gift I was making for our soon-to-be sister-in-law, finished up Siena’s little flower girl dress for my husband’s brother’s wedding that is in December, and worked on my daughter’s Christmas present. I also vacuumed my stairs, the whole upstairs and all the upstairs blinds. Today I swept and mopped out kitchen floor, wiped down all our kitchen table chairs, dusted the downstairs and I have plans to go up and sew some more once I am done writing here. There is something about a baby coming soon that has really given me a big surge of urgency and lit a fire under me to get things done. That being said, I haven’t had as much time to blog and cook as I would like to. Yes, I am still making dinner as usual, but it’s just some family basics that we do all the time like black bean soup, salads, vegan mac-and-cheese..etc.

P.s. As a little side note: My mom, Julie who also contributes to this website is currently in the middle of moving and has been for a few months now and therefore hasn’t been able to post much lately.

I know it’s a little overdue, but I figured I would share some fun photos from our Halloween.

My daughter and I went to a little fall festival here in town Halloween morning that was a lot of fun. We got there pretty much as it was starting and that meant that the lines were pretty short. I was happy that the face painting line was only 1 person long because later when I saw the line it was like 20 people long and wasn’t moving (they only had 1 painter working..that poor woman!). My daughter was so excited to have her face painted with a butterfly and has since done lots of “pretend play” face painting on my husband and I with her finger being the paintbrush and her hand holding the “paints”.

She had so much fun doing all the carnival games and couldn’t get enough of them.

They also had a firetruck there that she absolutely loved getting to climb inside and explore. When they left a little early from the carnival she started crying saying “my firetruck!” T’was pretty funny.

Afterwards we headed over to the local mechanic to have our car checked out, and Siena sat there patiently and ate her muffin. It was great.

This is what her face painting job looked like by the time we got home…

Yikes! Luckily it came off her dress and everything was fine!

We also went trick-or-treating for a bit that night. My daughter was loving it! She was literally running from house to house saying “I go-a next!” Halloween is so much fun when you have little kids!

Also, I wanted to let you know what our approach was to Halloween this year. We took her trick-or-treating and she got lots of candy from carnival games and such. I don’t mind her having a little candy to be honest. I know there are people that may read this and possibly even think I’m a bad mom for letting her have candy, but I personally feel that Halloween was a fun tradition for me and I don’t mind once a year letting my daughter indulge a little in some fun sweets. That night after trick-or-treating she was allowed to have 2 pieces of candy, and then every evening after dinner since then she has had 1 candy (occasionally 2). She knows that she only gets one, and she’s fine with that. In fact, she looks forward to her one piece of candy all day. I have lots of ideas on possible ways I want to approach Halloween in the future, but for this year, this has worked great for us. How do you guys like to approach Halloween?

Hope your Halloween was as fun and eventful as ours was.

Kristin

We have a Sunday tradition of having a pancake breakfast. My family and I look forward to this every single week! In fact, my daughter knows that if we get her up in the mornings while we’re still in p.j.’s that it’s probably Sunday and she begins chanting and cheering “Yay! Pancakes!” Over and over and over again.. 🙂 It’s pretty cute.

This last Sunday it was the perfect pancake breakfast morning too. It was cold outside and rainy. For some reason this made me extremely happy and very excited to have our pancakes. Then I remembered that we had wheat bran and I got even more excited because I knew that we could make these buttermilk wheat bran pancakes! I am such a fan. My husband has told me that he thinks these are the best pancakes I’ve made.. and I’m pretty sure I’ve tested out at least 10-15 different types pancake recipes.

These pancakes are such a great fluffy texture but they also are really hearty because of the bran. I love the buttermilk element to it too because I feel that anything with buttermilk is always better!

As a side note.. I promised pictures of my daughter’s Halloween costume, so here they are!

In case you’re still not sure what she is, she’s little red riding hood. I am SO happy with how her costume turned out! She is surprisingly happy with it too. She didn’t want to take it off today after our little photo-shoot. I love Halloween! So fun! Anyway, back to pancakes…

My daughter has a new obsession with mickey mouse.. I know this isn’t too impressive of a pancake, but my daughter thought it was the coolest thing ever! Totally worth it.:)

Vegan Buttermilk Wheat Bran Pancakes

Prep time

7 mins

Total time

7 mins

Makes 16 pancakes

Author: greenleavesandjam.com

Ingredients

1¾ cups wheat flour
¾ cup wheat bran
1½ tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar (optional)
2 tbsp flax meal
1½ cups vegan buttermilk (1½ cups unsweetened non-dairy milk + 1 tbsp and 1 tsp white vinegar)
¼ cup olive oil
1¼ cup water
1 tsp vanilla
chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

In a 2 cup measuring cup, pour 1½ cups non-dairy milk and the 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp white vinegar and mix well.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, bran, baking powder, salt, sugar and flax meal.
Add the "buttermilk" mixture to the dry ingredients along with the oil, water and vanilla. Stir until well combined. If you would like chocolate chips mix them in now.

Our favorite way to eat these vegan buttermilk wheat bran pancakes is either with the healthy peanut butter syrup, or with a layer of peanut butter slathered on top and maple syrup on top of that.

Hope you enjoy!

Kristin

Before I get into the whole wheat cheesecake factory bread recipe, I wanted to announce that I recently started a small business with a friend where we are selling modern and trendy baby bibs. Here’s our first set for sale on Amazon!

I have finally finished my daughter’s Halloween costume but am planning to go this weekend to pick up one last piece for it. I will post a picture in my next post. I am so excited about it. I have started on a new project which is the flower girl dress that my daughter will wear for my brother-in-law and soon to be sister-in-law’s wedding. I am actually pretty close to being done with that project too. Just have to add the sleeves and do the hem and it’ll be finished. I love sewing so much. It’s such a great stress reliever for me.

On another note, our computer decided to freak out last night and the screen is now doing some odd things. Luckily I already had some pictures on my computer that I had put together for this whole wheat cheesecake factory bread recipe, otherwise I might have had to wait a while until we got it fixed before being able to post again. Hopefully we can fix it soon!

We love this bread recipe. It’s not too complicated of a recipe and I love that I was able to find a way to make it entirely out of whole wheat flour and it still tastes just like the cheesecake factory bread. The key here is a wet/fairly sticky dough. When the dough is pretty wet it is able to rise better.

Whole Wheat Cheesecake Factory Bread Recipe

Cook time

35 mins

Total time

35 mins

This makes 2 nine inch loaves

Author: greenleavesandjam.com

Ingredients

3½ cup slightly warm water
4 tbsp vegan butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp caramel color*
½ cup agave, or some other sticky sweetener
2 tbsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp vital wheat gluten
2 tsp salt
3½ cup whole wheat flour
3½- 4 cups more wheat flour (I do 3½ cups)
chopped oats for sprinkling on top

Directions

In a standing mixer, mix together water, butter, caramel color, agave, yeast, cocoa, wheat gluten and salt. Add in 3½ cup wheat flour and mix until well combined. Let that sit for 10 minutes.
Add in the second amount of 3½ cups wheat flour one cup at a time, mixing it in well.
Let this sit in covered bowl for about 20-30 minutes or until it has doubled in size.
Spray your counter or table with cooking spray and spray your rolling pin as well.
Remove half of your dough and place on top of the oiled spot. Roll out your dough into a long rectangle and then roll the long part of the rectangle over itself until you have a roll of dough.
Place this in your 9 inch bread pan and repeat this step with the second half of your dough.
Allow it to rise for about 20 minutes or until it has doubled in size.
Sprinkle your chopped oats and then bake it in your oven heated to 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

*For Caramel Color. You can buy this, or you can home-make it like I do. To do that you will need:

3 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp water, 1 pinch of cream of tarter, ¼ cup boiling water.

Heat the sugar and 1 tbsp water over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Turn up the heat and let it boil for 2 minutes, covered. Whisk in the cream of tarter and boil until the mixture becomes very dark in color(2-3 minutes), whisking the entire time. Add in your ¼ cup boiling water (I heat mine in the microwave to get it boiling) and stir. You will want to wear a glove because the mixture will splatter when you add in the water.

Whole Wheat Cheesecake Factory Bread Recipe

Hope you enjoy this whole wheat cheesecake factory bread! It’s the perfect side to any dish or even just the perfect mid-afternoon snack.

Kristin

I recently finished some fun Halloween decorations for our house and thought I would share them with you. I made a Halloween banner, cut out some bats from the craft foam paper stuff and hung them from the cieling, and also make a cute little pom-pom spider. Click on the words for each decoration if you want the link for the bat stencil from conuntryliving.com or a demonstration for how to make the little spider.

Also, a little shout-out to my mother-in-law who came in town over the weekend and was so kind to polished up our silver that is sitting on the little half wall.:)

Back to talking about one of my favorite things.. FOOD!:) As mentioned in the title, this lasagna is one of our family’s favorites. It is a little labor intensive, but it pays great dividends in the end. I love that this lasagna uses things that we almost always have on hand (excluding the mushrooms). It is made from cashews for the white/cheesy filling and it tastes and feels so similar to it’s non-vegan counterpart.

Another thing I love is that although it has steps for the fillings, you don’t have to cook the noodles ahead of time. One less thing to worry about!

Plant-based Veggie Lasagna, A Family Favorite

Prep time

45 mins

Cook time

1 hour

Total time

1 hour 45 mins

Author: greenleavesandjam.com

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 box of lasagna noodles

For Cashew Filling:

1½ cup cashews
½ cup water
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1½ tbsp lemon juice
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 tbsp dried parsley
1½ tsp sea salt

For Veggie Spaghetti Sauce*:

6 oz. can tomato paste
2-14.5 oz. cans stewed tomatoes
1½ packet of McCormick Spaghetti Sauce Mix (I use thick and zesty flavoring)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 yellow squash, chopped
1 cup chopped button mushrooms

For Breadcrumb Topping:

1 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 tsp olive oil

Directions

For Cashew Filling:

Place cashews, water, garlic and onion in a food processor. Process until it is fairly blended and only has small pieces of cashew. Add in your lemon juice, nutritional yeast dried parsley and sea salt

For Veggie Spaghetti Sauce:

*If you would like to cut out a few steps you and just use a jar and a half of your favorite marinara sauce mixed with the sauteed veggies instead of mixing your own sauce.

In a blender add the tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce mix and pulse until smooth.
In the same sauce pan that you cooked the onions and garlic, saute the chopped bell better, chopped squash and chopped mushrooms. Once the veggies are soft add in your spaghetti sauce and mix until the veggies are distributed.

For Assembly:

Using about 1 cup of the veggie spaghetti sauce, spread a thin layer over the bottom of a 9X13 pan.
Lay down a layer of dry lasagna noodles.
Spread ½ of the cashew mixture over your dry noodles.
Spread ½ of the remaining veggie spaghetti sauce over the cashew layer.
Spread remaining cashew mixture and then spread the remaining spaghetti sauce.
In a small bowl mix the panko breadcrumbs and olive oil together. Shake this over the top of your lasagna.
Cover your lasagna with tin foil and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Remove the tin foil and bake for another 10 minutes.

Like I said, this recipe takes a little more preparation time than some recipes, but it is worth the time. We love it. There are a few ways you could cut down the time too if you felt so inclined. I mentioned using your own jarred spaghetti sauce, if you had a veggie spaghetti sauce already that you liked, you could even skip the sauteing of the pepper, squash and mushrooms, but I really love the fresh veggies in mine.

Hope you enjoy this Plant-based veggie lasagne!

Kristin

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